


a monster like me

by electric_typewriter



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electric_typewriter/pseuds/electric_typewriter
Summary: In retrospect he will realize that it had been a long time coming, the load building and building until the final straw is enough to break the camel’s back. Maybe it’s the way the whole situation reminds him of a conversation he’d had with Andrew, way back when their closeness had been new and delicately built, touches between them careful, but Andrew’s steady eyes and unflinching words a constant that Neil had already known to be safe to lean against.The next time one of them says you’re soulless, he’d said,I might have to fight them.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 20
Kudos: 408





	a monster like me

Neil knows that the Foxes don’t really understand his relationship with Andrew. He doesn’t frankly give a fuck about that, and never has. Their thing, or not a thing, whatever you want to call existing in the only way that makes sense for them, is not there for others to understand. Their comprehension or support is something he could take or leave. What they have isn’t up for debate, doesn’t rely on anyone’s approval. It just is. So he takes their guarded looks and questions the same way he takes their expressions of support - he lets them happen and moves on. Nobody could say or do anything that would push him and Andrew apart. The way they are is an unshakeable fact of the universe that is not in any way conditional.

He doesn’t care that they don’t get it. He doesn’t care about what they think, not his Fox family, not the freshmen, not Katelyn or her cheerleader pals. Let them wonder. He’s happy, and he knows Andrew is, too, in his way. They need each other and belong together in a permanent sort of way. Whether or not that’s something the others can understand does not concern Neil.

Sometimes it does rub him the wrong way, though, the way they talk about him and Andrew. He’s not sure what it is, at first, but as the comments pile up, he begins to figure it out. 

At times, their sideways looks and passing comments leave him feeling lonely and isolated and desperate in the way he used to feel back when he wasn’t sure how long this would last but was absolutely certain he would never be able to tell these people the truth about himself. Now they know all his dirty little secrets, every nasty detail of his past is out in the open, and he’s been welcomed, accepted, asked to stay regardless, something he never thought he could have. Yes, he feels rooted here, feels like he belongs somewhere more than he ever has before, but the truth of it is that for all their love and acceptance, somehow they still don’t see him. They still don’t know the first thing about him, nothing real - refuse to acknowledge anything about him except the parts they want to see. He’s grateful that they welcome Neil Josten and claim him as their own, but he wonders how it can be so easy for them to pretend that the other parts of him, the difficult parts which at times catch him off-guard and make him feel terrified, disjointed, alienated, utterly and completely fucking alone, don’t exist at all. 

And then there’s Andrew. Andrew, whom they’ve known for years, who’s always been there, part of their team, part of their makeshift family, but whom they know nothing about, and don’t care to start learning now. They dismiss him as a monster, unpredictable and wild, soulless, and have no interest in discovering if that is the truth.

It makes Neil’s blood boil. 

In retrospect he will realize that it had been a long time coming, the load building and building until the final straw is enough to break the camel’s back. Maybe it’s the way the whole situation reminds him of a conversation he’d had with Andrew, way back when their closeness had been new and delicately built, touches between them careful, but Andrew’s steady eyes and unflinching words a constant that Neil had already known to be safe to lean against. _The next time one of them says you’re soulless_ , he’d said, _I might have to fight them._ Back then, it had been an aside, a passing thought, one of the first moments he’d truly realized how horrifically Andrew was misunderstood by the people who were meant to be his team and his family, his support and protection. He’d thought about Andrew’s gentleness, his steady hands and watchful eyes, his steadfast presence even as he’d unraveled his deepest fears for Neil to witness. It had seemed so clear to him then, the infinite depth of Andrew’s soul, his unflinching acceptance. He’d wondered how the others couldn’t see it, if it was just that he had been allowed something rarely given, secrets rarely shared, weaknesses never revealed.

He’d discovered that wasn’t it, later on. Andrew was as he'd always been, but Neil had seen what the others hadn’t because he had looked. He, too, had at first been fooled into believing in the image of Andrew they had built in their hateful, guarded fear, concealing the blatant truth that, in the end, he had discovered so easily: Andrew was just a person. Deeply hurt, desperately afraid, and fiercely devoted to the people under his protection, but in the end just a person. Not a monster.

Realizing the others couldn’t see what he did had been a slap in the face. Andrew’s nonchalance about it had helped him let it go, seethe quietly and move on. Not his battle, not this one. They each had the right to fight their own. That was trust. 

And so for the longest time, he lets it go, buries the discomfort and tries to let the unease caused by their careless words slide away like so much water off a duck's back, but when he reaches the end of his tether, the impact of it nearly chokes him. Perhaps, in the end, it isn’t just about Andrew. Perhaps it is the other side of that mounting discomfort that finally makes him snap. Andrew the soulless, and Neil the innocent. Perhaps it’s all of it, wrapped in a neat little parcel of alienation and fatigue. 

It’s just another day, some of the team sitting in little groups around the girls’ dorm, Neil focused on his math homework, Dan on his right reading some book for whatever class she’s taking - Neil doubts he could keep up with his teammates’ academic pursuits even if he cared enough to try, but as it is, he’s much more interested in what they’re doing on the court. Andrew, slouched to his left, slams shut his criminology textbook, gets up and tugs at Neil’s sleeve to get his attention. Neil looks up, eyes soft.

“I’ll see you later,” Andrew says.

“Sure,” Neil says. “You’re coming to night practice, right?”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“What else am I good for?” Neil teases, smiling a little at Andrew’s brusque tone. 

“Not a damn thing,” Andrew says, flicking his finger at Neil’s forehead. Neil laughs, soft and quiet under his breath. Andrew looks at him for a beat, eyes softening a little. “I hate you,” he says, gentle and quiet, as close to a confession as Neil could ever need. Neil closes his eyes briefly against the emotion welling up in his chest before looking at Andrew again.

“Every bit of me, right?” he says softly. Andrew scowls and flips his hand in a dismissive farewell before disappearing through the door, turning towards their dorm room. 

“I honestly don’t know how you have the energy for that,” Dan says, scowling at the door. Neil hasn’t looked away from the door either, still smiling, the soft, intimate tone of Andrew’s parting statement still lingering on his skin like a kiss on the cheek. He startles at Dan’s voice, turns to look at her. Dan carries on, “Doesn’t it get tiring to be dating someone who’s always so cold?”

Neil’s first reaction is confusion. It takes him a moment to realize what the hell Dan is talking about - that somehow she’d witnessed the latest interaction between Neil and Andrew and instead of noticing the open warmth and affection that Neil had felt so clearly, she had come out of it thinking Andrew had been cold. The moment Neil’s infatuated, math-addled brain catches up with that reality, his soft smile and the warmth bubbling in his chest are gone, replaced by an unwelcome twitch in the corner of his mouth and a cold, heavy lump in his stomach. That’s his captain - his beloved, respected captain whom he would follow to the end of the world. That’s what she thinks of them. It’s not new, it’s not a surprise, but it’s rare of her to express that view so blatantly, directly to him, like a question she expects him to answer, like it’s something he should explain.

“What do you mean?” Neil says, and internally cringes at the steel edge to his voice. He doesn’t care for the way it reminds him of his father.

“I just mean,” Dan says, no doubt a bit flustered by the sudden change in Neil’s expression. “You know. You’re so…” she gestures in a vague way, smiling, “and he’s. You know.” She widens her eyes and makes a vague throat slitting gesture. Neil frowns.

“I don’t know, no,” he says. He hates the way he sounds right now. He hates the way his skin feels too tight on him and he can’t seem to control the expression on his face. “What am I like?”

“You know, personable. Normal,” Dan says. It seems like she’s realizing that this might have been a can of worms better left unopened, but it’s far too late for regrets now. “It’s just hard to picture you happy with him. Does he even like you? Is he capable of that kind of emotion? To be honest, he seems a bit too soulless to be in a happy, healthy relationship.”

Neil would stop the filthy, cruel little smile creeping on his face if he had time, but as it is, it slips on like the hackles on a dog rising. 

“If you seriously think he’s the cold one and I’m the poor, _normal_ -” he spits the word out like a curse, his voice coloured by cold amusement “- betrayed soul stuck in some kind of parody of a loving relationship because I don’t know any better, you seriously don’t know either one of us very well.”

Dan almost flinches. Neil is slapped with a sudden visceral disgust for what he must look like, watching Dan school her face back to something close to normal but unable to shake that last bit of wariness. She doesn’t know him right now, he realizes. She’s never seen this person. 

“Neil,” she says softly. 

“No, you know what,” he says, suddenly so very fucking tired. He can’t shake his father’s damn smile off his face, he can’t stop the ghost burning sensation on his cheek, he can’t shake the cold heavy discomfort sitting at the bottom of his stomach. This is what they think about Andrew. They trust him to guard the goal, and not for anything else. Not even to do right by Neil, the one thing he would never betray their trust on. Except no, that’s not right - Andrew doesn’t let people down. He doesn’t betray promises, not ever. He says what he does and then does just that, and the others still treat him like some unpredictable animal and Neil like his keeper, and Neil is tired of it, so fucking tired, and he doesn’t want to do this anymore. “No. You don’t get to say that shit anymore. You pretend I’m like you, and I’m not. You pretend like he’s some incomprehensible monster from an alien planet, and he’s _not_. He’s just a person, and he’s your teammate, and you’ve never even tried to understand him. You’re too busy side-eyeing and gossiping and worrying about other people’s business.”

“Neil,” Dan says again, and Neil would be worried about how pale she looks if he had a single fuck left to give.

“No, shut up,” he says, quiet and measured, voice not his own, increasingly familiar in a way he viscerally loathes. “You’re supposed to be the captain of this team, Dan. How have you not even tried to understand your goalkeeper of three years? I understand he’s hurt Matt, and I understand that means he’s hurt you. But if Matt has forgiven him, why can’t you? And if you can’t forgive him, can you stop fucking pretending you know what he’s like? You know, the freshmen think he’s a soulless monster too. I wonder who’s spreading that agenda.”

The smirk hurts his face. He wants to claw his entire face off to get rid of it, he wants to throw up, he wants to dunk himself into ice water. He wants Andrew. He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t feel safe, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he wants to run run run. If someone called him Josten now, he wouldn’t know who they meant.

“I need to go,” he says, voice tight with barely restrained panic, and gets up, leaving a frightened-looking Dan behind. He goes to follow wherever Andrew went and then changes his mind and climbs up to the roof instead. He needs to find himself, find the ground under his feet and the body he exists in more than he needs to find Andrew, and he needs to be able to do it on his own. Andrew will know where to find him if he needs to.

It’s too cold to be sitting on the roof in just his t-shirt, but Neil doesn’t frankly care. He kind of welcomes the bite, if he’s honest. It’s good to feel something that’s real to this physical body at this moment; it helps him focus on counting his breaths and bringing himself back to the present. He sits for a long while, fingers aching for a cigarette to hold, but he doesn’t have any on him so he’ll have to do without. He’s not sure when the smoke stopped reminding him of his mother and started to remind him of Andrew, instead, but he needs it at times, all the same. 

It feels like a long time that he sits there on his own, trying to calm down and failing time and again, but he’s not quite sure how much time actually passes. When a warm body settles next to him he’s returned to himself enough not to be surprised by that, but the who of it still catches him off guard.

“You doing okay?” Matt asks in a soft voice, in that tone of his which makes it clear that it’s okay to answer it with the truth but equally acceptable to brush it off as a nicety. Neil isn’t sure which he wants to go for. He isn’t sure about a lot of things, right now, if he’s honest.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he wonders if he sounds as tired as he feels.

“She’s not mad,” Matt says, like that’s what Neil was worried about. It’s decidedly not, but Neil appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. “But she’s worried you might be.”

“I am,” Neil says before he has time to stop himself, and then decides it doesn’t matter. “Or I was, at least. I’m not sure what I am now. Maybe disappointed. I’m trying to figure it out.”

Matt makes a little sound that means he’s listening. That he thinks Neil probably has more to say, and that he’s waiting for him to get there. When Neil doesn’t add anything, Matt says softly, “She’s worried about you. Said you didn’t seem like yourself.”

Neil does his best to choke down the humorless little chuckle, but doesn’t quite manage. He doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t feel like himself - or, that’s not quite it. He doesn’t feel like anything, doesn’t know who he is, doesn’t recognise himself. The entire person he’s decided to be is a lie. Everything they love about him is fiction. How could he be himself?

“I think,” Matt says carefully, “that it’s possibly not that simple, for you. Am I right?”

“I suppose,” Neil says. To his own ears, he sounds tired. He wonders what Matt is thinking. He wonders what Matt sees when he looks at him. Matt is his best friend, he thinks, and feels sick with it. Everything about him is a lie, a carefully constructed illusion of normalcy. Matt deserves better than that. 

How is it that knowing what they know about him, having seen glimpses of the harrowing, sickening truth he’s worked so hard to conceal and tamp down and ignore, they still look at Andrew and him and decide that Andrew is the monster? The fury crests and falls inside him, and he squeezes his fingernails into his palms to stop it from showing on his face. He’s not sure if he succeeds - nothing in Matt’s constitution shifts, but that doesn’t mean anything. Matt has become a constant; he’s an anchor of normalcy in Neil’s life, but he never flinches away from the ugly parts. Neil hopes that one day he can repay the trust, and then feels the wish curdle in the pit of his stomach with the sheer audacity of it. These are the things he’s grown to think he deserves. He’s a fabrication. What more could he trust Matt with?

“Half the time, I don’t feel real,” he says. He wonders if Matt can hear what he’s leaving unsaid. I’m not real, nothing about Neil Josten is. I don’t understand how you can all just accept a blatant lie as the truth so easily. “Andrew is the realest person I’ve ever met. It bothers me that people refuse to see that.”

“Which one is bothering you more, right now?” Matt asks. Neil directs his wry smirk at the stars. That’s something he likes about Matt - he doesn’t treat him like a broken thing. He’s just there. 

“I’m sick of how the team treats him,” Neil says instead of answering the question. “I’m sick of everyone thinking he doesn’t need anyone in his corner. I’m sick of the fact that nobody is. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t lift a finger to save his ass when it came to it, and don’t pretend that isn’t true.” The venom slips into his voice without his consent. He doesn’t want to speak to Matt like this. He doesn’t want Matt to have to deal with him the way he is now, the flimsy border between Josten and Wesninski creaking in its foundations, crumbling under pressure. He grinds his fist into the concrete flooring, and feels the skin break. It’s grounding. 

He’s braced for apologies and excuses that will do nothing but make him more furious, so he’s not prepared when Matthew just inclines his head and says, “Fair enough.”

He turns to look. Matthew looks a bit tired, but otherwise like he always does. Calm, familiar, a steadying presence. An anchor of normalcy. One of the fundamental building blocks of who Neil Josten is. Family. 

“We’ve let him down,” Matt says softly, and relief floods Neil’s insides. The admission of fault, the acknowledgement that they’ve let Andrew down, not Neil. Because Andrew’s humanity shouldn’t be a bargaining chip for Neil’s acceptance. Because abandoning him isn’t a slight on Neil. Because Andrew is his own person, more than Neil ever will be, and he deserves to be treated like one. Matt gets that. He’s as guilty of it as any of them, but at least he seems to understand who it is that he’s slighted. The cold discomfort in Neil's stomach begins unfurling, turns into a desperate relief that sends his body tingling.

“You have,” Neil manages to choke out. His voice isn’t coming out right. His breathing isn’t quite normal, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. 

“I suppose,” Matthew starts, and hesitates. Neil is suddenly viscerally reminded that Matt, too, is human. Someone who’s been hurt by Andrew. Someone who, despite his reliability and the comfort he brings, is just as flawed as any of them. “I suppose we felt shut out. He wouldn’t let anyone in. The way he reacted was - vicious. It was easier to pretend he was cruel and heartless than to try and pry him open.”

“He wouldn’t have welcomed it,” Neil says softly. “He doesn’t let people in.”

“He let you in.”

“Not because it was easy,” Neil says, and frowns. That’s not quite right. “And he didn’t let me in, really. We just took the wall down. Both of us. One brick at a time. Truth for truth.”

“I suppose you had more truths to trade than the rest of us,” Matt says softly, and Neil lets out a shuddering breath. He wonders, if he leaned against Matt, if he’d hold him up. He thinks about it and decides that he knows the answer. Matt is a constant. An anchor of normalcy. Someone to trust. These days, he feels spoiled for choice in that regard. Neil closes his eyes. 

“Maybe,” he says, but he knows that isn’t it. That doesn’t matter, though. He and Andrew are another story, a separate entity, their own steadfast real thing. “But that’s not really what I mean. I mean that he should be treated like a human being even when you can’t get in. He has his reasons, you know. I have mine. We all have our limits and walls and locked doors, and we only give out so many keys. He doesn’t have so many to give, and he doesn’t really care to make more. But he still deserves the respect of his team.”

“He does,” Matt says softly. “We need to do better.”

“Yes,” Neil says, and deflates a little, curls into himself and thinks about the weight of the keyring in his pocket. It’s quite heavy, these days. The heaviest keys are Andrew’s, hot with the certainty of belonging, the absolute permanence of it. “He’d do anything for this team, you know.”

Matt doesn’t reply, maybe because he doesn’t quite agree, maybe because he doesn’t need to. Neil is grateful for the silence, nonetheless. The cold unfamiliarity in his belly has all but disappeared, but he’s left with a sort of churning sensation that’s turning his insides into an unsettled mess. His fingers twitch for a cigarette to hold, and he laughs at himself.

“I really want a cigarette,” he murmurs, and he knows Matt understands it for what he’s saying. I want Andrew, I want Andrew. The sense memory of a hand on his neck, firm, grounding, but not there, is almost enough to send him reeling, but he stubbornly grinds his fist into the rough concrete and focuses on that instead. 

“Then have one,” he hears a familiar voice from behind, and startles at the pack of cigarettes landing at his feet. A lighter follows, skittering to a halt a few feet from him. Neil takes a deep breath, closing his eyes again, and settles. Some of the loose rattling pieces of him shift into place. 

“Hi,” he says softly without turning to look. He doesn’t need to. He doesn’t need to know where Andrew is to feel calm, the fact that he’s there at all is enough. He trusts Andrew with his back, with his soft underbelly, with all his secrets. It’s immediately a little easier to breathe, knowing he’s nearby.

“Time to go, Boyd,” Andrew says, not unkindly. “Go comfort your poor distressed lover.” _I’ll deal with this one_ , he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t need to. _I’ve got him._

Matt huffs a laugh and gets up. He ruffles Neil’s hair - Neil leans to it like a touch-starved kitten, unable to stop himself - and goes. Neil is grateful he doesn’t bother with a verbal goodbye. He doesn’t think he’d have it in him to respond.

When it’s evident Neil isn’t going to go after them, Andrew gets the lighter and cigarettes himself and sits down next to Neil. He lights two, one for himself and another to hand to Neil. Neil takes it with careful fingers, and glances at Andrew. He looks the same he always does - calm, unshakeable, trustworthy. Someone to lean on. Someone that makes him feel real. Andrew looks at him, huffs with a fond eye-roll and grabs Neil by the neck, pulls him close. Neil lets himself melt, head resting on Andrew’s shoulder, and stares at the ember of his cigarette, at the swirling smoke. He takes a deep breath, relaxes into the familiar comfort of cigarette smoke and Andrew. 

“I wish you’d stop fighting my battles,” Andrew says quietly. 

“It was mine, too,” Neil answers, pressing his cheek into the fabric of Andrew’s shirt. He flexes his fist, the skin split from the rough concrete. It doesn’t really hurt. 

“I suppose,” Andrew replies after a moment, and that’s that. They don’t really need to discuss it - they know what they’re like, what the team thinks of them, and how they feel about it. It’s just another thing. It’s the way things are. It doesn’t matter. 

“Can you pet my hair?” Neil asks. Andrew gestures at his lap, and Neil shifts to lower his head on Andrew’s thigh, smiling to himself. Andrew tangles his hands in Neil’s locks, tugs a little, and Neil feels the tension slip away. He closes his eyes, focuses on Andrew’s hand, stroking at his hair, combing fingers through it, tugging lightly every now and then to send pleasant sparks of warmth all the way to Neil’s toes. Slowly, he finds his breath again, finds his home in Andrew’s steady hands and the cigarette smoke that reminds him that he’s real, that he belongs somewhere. Andrew’s steady breathing, his familiar scent. It’s not that cold, now. He wonders if it ever actually was, or if he just felt that way, stuck in horrified unreality. It feels far away now. He hums softly in satisfaction, and Andrew snorts.

“Back with me, kitty cat?” Andrew says, the wry amusement in his voice softened by ill-concealed fondness. Neil just hums, lets himself smile. It doesn’t feel like an ugly, unwelcome thing, nothing harsh or cruel about it. It’s just fondness, and belonging. It’s the way he smiles when Andrew is around, and it’s very real. It’s everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, new fandom! Long time observer, first time writer. Apologies for possible inconsistencies with American vs. British spelling, I tried to stick to American but I'm not used to it so a few might have slipped through. But I figure it's Neil's point of view and his mum was British so it's fine, right? Right.
> 
> Title is from the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D386dU9thiA) I was listening to when I was editing and the line seemed tangentially related to the story, no deeper meaning involved there. I'm _really_ not in my element picking titles for fics.
> 
> Also, I absolutely believe that when they're alone (and especially when Neil is not feeling so great), Andrew uses the softest little petnames for Neil under the guise of sarcasm. Neil, of course, sees right through it.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! I really want to write more for this fandom.


End file.
